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Showing posts with label anxiety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anxiety. Show all posts

19 July, 2020

Surf's up! We're riding the anxiety wave!

I know that I am not alone when it comes to being an anxiety-ridden ball of... something for the last few months, so this isn't something uniquely mine. But hear me out...

The last few months have been like riding a giant wave, in a storm. I'm waiting for it to crash down on top of me, or shoot me out the end into calm, blue seas...... and NEITHER of those are fucking happening.

To help me deal with stress and anxiety, I plan. I plan and make plans and then do backup plans... it's one of my little quirks that, thankfully, Lady Bourbon finds amusing... or tolerable. When COVID hit, I planned food. I planned supplies. I planned on how to keep us all indoors and possibly sane. It worked. It gave me something to do for a while. 

But now... fuck me, man.

Half the country is going on like it's not a thing, the other half is still locked in their homes waiting... and I don't know how to plan for that. My kids are supposed to be going back to school in like, what? 3 weeks? Do I send them? Do I keep them home? Do I burn down the school and make it less of an option?! (please note: I would never actually burn down the school unless we were invaded and the invading army was using it as their base of operations... then I'd light that bitch up.) 

Seriously... I'm at the end of my fucking rope on what to do here. Lady Bourbon and I have stayed up many nights talking about what to do and when we start these conversations, and there are too many variables. My brain just starts going, "eeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE." And I sort of black out for a minute.


Then we have "The country" and all its woes... and there are a lot of fucking woes, my friends. We have civil unrest across the board. We have white supremacy on the rise in many areas. Our "leadership" uses openly hostile words, tactics, and rhetoric against our own people and, deep down, I fear we're heading for something bad. And by "bad" I mean anything from armed conflict to massive economic collapse.
So I plan. I planned food, again. I planned money. I planned protection. I planned how to keep me and mine safe and protect in case of the worst-case scenario. It worked and gave me something to do for a while. 

But now... fuck me, man. 

Half the country is still rioting to one extent or another, the other half is on Facebook complaining about or congratulating the first half. Cops are bagging people in the streets, rioters are breaking stuff and pulling down statues... and the online fights are just as awful and nowhere is safe... meaning there is no online refuge. Everyone is an opinion-having monster with no love for anyone. Lady Bourbon and I have stayed up many nights talking about what to do and when we start these conversations, and there are too many variables. So my brain starts going, "eeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE." And I sort of black out for a minute.

And there is my problem... I can only plan so much. At some point, I run out of things to plan and prepare for and I am left feeling the weight of all that anxiety... and man, it sucks. You've probably seen my posts on Bug Out Bags and the like. That's what I've been doing for the last 2 months. 

I need something to happen or I need it all to go away... I can't keep up this level of anxiety and planning day-in and day-out without some sort of payoff one way or the other. Like I said before, I'm trying to surf this wave. I'm still surfing this wave... I'm still waiting for something bad to happen and all of this planning to be worthwhile... or I'll pop out of that tube and find myself in the clear again.

The only good thing to come out of ALL of this - aside from leaving my miserable job with Debbie - is that I now have wonderfully stocked first aid kits. I can treat anything from a kids' tiny boo-boo all the way up to a 9" gash down your forearm that needs compression bandages and staples.... And as fucking cool as that is, it's still not the same as just being calm and going on about my day. 

I'm beginning to not know how to handle all of this shit. I'm running out of plans to be made... You can't plan for everything and there are WAY too many possibilities out there that could happen. I guess I could enhance my "oh, sweet Jesus, it's the end of days" plan... or my "North Korea just launched an EMP at the Midwest" plan... but then those plans cost a lot of money, man. I'm not ready to turn my garage into a Faraday cage just yet.... 

I'm not really sure what the point of this post was. I think I just needed a distraction and to put some stuff down on "paper" per se.  Maybe I'm hoping someone will comment and give me something to think about and talk... Maybe I should just write more and take my mind off it all. Maybe I need to finish my post apocalyptic novel I started in 2005... It's just that this is all messing with my sense of reality. My sense of how things SHOULD be. Now, I think abut how things COULD become and it bothers me...

Ah well... How are you dealing with this? Bug out bags and spare food? Books and coffee? Smoke and a pancake? 


28 January, 2020

The end is NIGH and YOU ARE FUCKED - A Dr. Bourbon Apocalyptic Missive...

We’ve all seen the movies – first it’s one guy, then ten, then a thousand, then BAM! We flash-forward five years and we’re told through various cut-scenes and flashbacks how the world ended while the hero tries to score some gas out of a dust-covered SUV in the city.

Well, fuck a lot of that! 

You want to know what truly frightens me about the news and the world lately? What keeps me up at night once the kiddos are in bed and I’m out of alcohol?

 Four words:     

The Wal-Mart Parking Lot.




Yep. That’s it. That’s why I am scared to death of Corona Virus, Ebola and/or any disease, super-flu, cold, epidemic, pandemic or any other word that the news media can throw around in sound bites to frighten people.

Why? Why does this make me quake with fear? I shall tell you, good reader.

Today it is raining. It is cold, wet and miserable outside and I needed to stop by the Wal to get some fixins for tonight’s dinner – and oh, sweet mother of fuck! I was faced with Wal-Mart’s parking lot. Carts everywhere – people parked in the walkway so they could load their groceries without getting wet – going up the down aisle - cats and dogs LIVING TOGETHER!!!! Mass hysteria!  

And that’s just because of the minor inconvenience of rain… just some water falling from the sky.

Now – imagine if you will an ACTUAL emergency! 

OH. MY. FUCKING. SCIENCE! 

It would be every man for himself – I would fully expect to see old-west style shoot-outs in the parking lot over cases of water or surgical masks. People are assholes, man. And nowhere in America is that more obvious (other than Twitter that is) than Wal-Mart. 

If I cannot expect a man to walk 20 feet in the rain to maneuver a shopping cart out of the way of other would-be shoppers because it is raining – how can I even THINK about expecting him to wait patiently for a vaccine during an epidemic or nationwide crisis? Stand inline for water or rations during an emergency? FUCK NO! Thank you very much!

This is ‘Murica and I take what I want!

I do think that, for the most part, people are wonderful and will do what’s right – but then again, the mob mentality and the seriously overwhelming sense of “Mine” in this country make me very much fear any sort of disaster that lasts longer than a few weeks.

I hope I am wrong, I really do – actually, I hope that I never get the chance to find out. But, in the case that things go south in a hurry – I hope people will remember to BE people. I hope they’ll remember that we are, in fact, all in this together.

So… with that being said - Put your fucking carts in the cart corral, people. Quit being selfish dicks!

The end.

04 October, 2019

Anxiety and the inability of action

Let us, once again, discuss anxiety. The fun, paralysis-inducing anxiety that we often don't see and can't feel until it's too late and we end up fucking ourselves because sometimes a thing seems so fucking big that we don't know how to tackle it... so it grows and grows and we keep ignoring it... then it all comes falling down and tries to drown us in the bullshit.

Because, you know, that's fun!

In this instance - I'm talking about debt, finances, and, most importantly, student loans.

Lady Bourbon and I live comfortably. Not like SUPER comfortably, but we get to go out to eat from time to time, our bills are generally paid on time, and we have some stuff set aside for an emergency. But, like many Americans, we are one serious illness away from probably being homeless. And, for that at least, I blame the American healthcare system and insurance companies. Unless we happen to become millionaires overnight - this will probably never change.

Student loans, on the other hand... fuck me.

Lady Bourbon does not have them. But I do. I have a lot of them. My first couple of years were at a private college with $24,000/year tuition. I had a scholarship - but not for $48,000. Then, I joined the army and did all that shit and was told I'd get "student loan repayment" as part of my incentive. What they did NOT tell me, however, was that said repayment was for "pre-existing loans" and they "had to be from a State College or University."  So that $48,000 tab I ran up... still a thing.

But let us fast forward many years where I've been putting my loans on forbearance  or paying the absolute minimum possible just because I didn't want to fuck with them. Then, I get a nice "payment holiday" for a year and they are forgotten completely.

Then... I get a letter with the words "defaulted" in the title.

And I'm terrified.

I made the calls, I've got the forms, but I just keep putting it off like some magical thing is going to come down, do it for me, and life will go on. I get absolutely frozen with anxiety and fear about this shit. I don't know how to handle it. What if I send this paperwork in and they're all "Sorry, dude. Your new payment plan is $600 a month." - because that would probably fucking kill me.

The bigger problem is that this anxiety also trickles down into other things and in other ways... I focus on stupid shit and things that matter pile up. Did I pay the gas bill last month? I don't know. I haven't seen a disconnect notice. What about cable? Surely I paid the cable bill... right? They all become an "oh, fuck, am I completely screwing everything up?" pile of anxiety. Then that ball rolls and rolls and rolls until one day I declare "Okay, I will fix this shit!" And I start making progress. I double-check the bills. I set up auto-pay on some of them... but what if we have a short month and the auto-pay fucks us? Better not do that... surely you'll remember to pay it... right?

So I've got a notebook and a pen on my desk today. I'm calling Nelnet and Naviant. I've caught up the bills, I've put things in place... and I'm trying to not freak the fuck out about being poor. Or poor-er than we are...

On top of the crippling anxiety that comes with facing your failures in life - comes the "let us just drink at night and forget about our problems in hopes that we can sleep." So I drink more. I eat bad food. I smoke a LOT of cigarettes. Why? Fuck if I know. Something about dopamine and the brain... When I get super anxiety-filled... I just want to eat, smoke, drink, and fuck... Because this causes my brain to excrete some tiny chemical that pushes back at the anxiety and allows me to go one for just a little longer... to just eke-out another day of existence before accepting the shit decisions I've made and having to face the fucking music...

There you go, dear internet... Welcome to a small glimpse into my anxiety nightmare for the time being.

On the bright side - it's all being dealt with at the moment... How well and how long remains to be seen.

04 April, 2019

The Anxiety of Sleep

Sometimes dreams are awesome. Lady Bourbon is a hyper-vivid dreamer with all sorts of cool shit in her dreams... like Voltron. My dreams are not so cool.

It's been a long time since I've had "fun" dreams. My dreams over the last 10 years or so have all been, more or less, real life while I'm sleeping. Which, as you can imagine, sucks balls. And not in the fun "yeah baby, I like the way you do that" way. More of the "I accidentally fell on the vacuum hose and my balls are being sucked into oblivion and I think I'd rather be dead" kind of way.

Last night's dream though... Holy shit. That was a doozy.

I had a dream in which I was driving my car to the hospital. I called them on the phone to let them know I was coming and that I was having a stroke. In the mirror I could see my face slacken and go lifeless and I lost control of the car as I pulled into the hospital lot. Then I dreamed in 3rd person POV for a while and then back to being me as they tried to fix me. This involved them sticking some sort of needle-like probe into my ear and having fluid run through my brain and out the other ear.

It hurt.

28 February, 2019

Anxiety - A Guest Post by Lady Bourbon

We're back with another amazing guest author post... 


Today's Guest post doesn't need an introduction... I've done that already here.


ANXIETY
A Guest Post by Lady Bourbon



It was a dark and stormy night...

Actually, no, it wasn't. It was beautiful, sunny, and unseasonably warm for October. It was only dark and stormy inside my head, but the whole world might as well have been covered in in darkness as far as I was concerned at the moment.

So, I'm standing there, in my kitchen, trying to find the will to walk out my door and go to the sarlaac pit I call work. I was staring out the window at the garage. I was alone. The kids were at school and Bourbon was at work. I thought, maaaaaaaybe I could just... quit.


Not my job... My life.


No more work. No more overbearing mom. No more fear that every tiny thing I do is being judged and picked apart. No more feeling like a failure. That sounded pretty damn nice. Then, my mind wandered... as my mind is wont to do. I thought about ways to achieve this state of restful bliss.

26 February, 2019

Dude looks like a lady...

So... let's do some honesty therapy, shall we?

One night in, probably 2005(?) I got to dress in drag for a party. Complete with makeup... and that shit was hot. I think it is safe to say that since that moment, I've held a small, but growing desire to wear that type of outfit again.

Women are lucky... if they're feeling down or sad - they can spruce up with makeup. A little eyeliner, some blush, a little lipstick... bam. All the tiredness is gone. Men - we have to look good with soap, poorly managed beards, and... that's about it.

This weekend Lady Bourbon and I tried something new... She went to the store and picked me out a nice top and some very nice satin panties to match the skirt she gave me. We went out to dinner in normal, gender approved clothing... with the exception of the purple, satin panties I wore under my jeans... They felt amazing.

11 October, 2018

Mental Health Day...

Yesterday was the 2018 National Mental Health Day... and I took the day off of work for Mental Health Reasons.


Well, that, and to spend time with my wife and kids.

The irony being - calling in fake-sick to work... gave me a fucking panic attack. I suffer from PTSD. Sometimes horribly so. And yesterday, while having a good time out with my wife and kids - I had a little bit of a freak out.

When I do things like call in sick when I'm not, or give my kids off to my parents to go do something for myself, I get horrible guilt. This guilt compounds over time and causes anxiety. The anxiety builds up and then BAM! I get a full blown panic attack all because I wanted to take time for myself. And this is killing me...

So, as my day went on, we were having fun and I went into the local bookstore to look for some good books. This store is about as big as my living room and is floor-to-ceiling books. They have shelves everywhere and it's a narrow, confined space with no circulation, no sound, and it's hot. I... already starting to stress out from being home... started to get really uncomfortable in this place. My ears were ringing, I couldn't catch my breath, I felt like the books were going to collapse on me and kill me... it was a good time.*

When we got home I was drenched in panic-sweat and my heart felt like it was trying to beat out of my chest. So I went upstairs, turned the lights off, and curled up with the cat for 2 hours and tried to calm down. It helped a little, but not much.

Mental Health is no joke. And we all need to take care of ourselves. BUT... how can I do this when taking time to myself actually CAUSES me anxiety??  I can't stand my fucking job and it is, literally, killing me with its stress and bullshit.

What I'd like to do is sit back, smoke a shitload of weed, and try to relax... but I can't. I'm desperately trying to find a job closer to home and they all still test. I'd LIKE to find some sort of medication that helps, but the last one they put me of turned me into a fucking paranoid monster.  Seriously - that shit was awful. My wife and I both agreed it was better for me to be the way I am than the paranoid, weirdo that the pills caused... I would wake up in the middle of the night, wide awake, worried about the most ridiculous shit. I was suspicious of everyone and everything - including my wife which was a big red flag... I've been off of that shit for a few months now and things are MUCH better.

It sucks.

It all fucking sucks. 

I drink more now than I ever have in my life... which is saying something when you look at my
twenties. But it's sometimes the only way I can shut my brain off long enough to get some sleep. Then the problem arises that drinking causes dehydration and dehydration causes high blood pressure and high blood pressure helps to cause the anxiety. It's a vicious fucking circle of bullshit. But drinking seems to be the one and only option to my since our country has a hard-on for calling mental illness a weakness and shunning people... and then we destroy our healthcare in the name of political theater...

Then - to make it better - I try to explain to my boss that "sometimes I just need a minute to process some shit. I'll be fine, just let me calm down." And she - being one of those people who has done everything you've done, only better, and has advice about fucking EVERYTHING tries to belittle my PTSD with "Well, when my dad died I had some PTSD, but coming to work really helped get me back on track."

REALLY?

FUCKING REALLY???

You're DAD was sick for six years and his death was not sudden. While I, in no way, doubt that it was traumatic... It's not the same thing to be in your fifties and losing a parent as it is to have been in my twenties and watching people fucking burn to death in Iraq. Sorry. It's not a contest... but if it was, FUCK YOU.


AH - damnit. Now I'm all pissed off and forgot where I was going with this...

Take care of yourself, people. I mean - really TRY and take care of yourself. Take time for YOU. Take time for your loved ones... and Don't let all of the bullshit in the world weigh you down and pull you under.


*It was not, in fact, a good time at all...

It's my first day